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Again. Once again here. I just had to reach out to someone for extra help. I can’t do this alone.

I had a great sober week or so after I last potsed. had a fantastic time doing it and then drank for 5 days solid secretly and painfully when on holiday in an all inclusive hotel.

I’ve got to stop. The last few times I’ve tried, I have had half a mind that it’s something that would be good to do, but not entirely necessary. That I can cope with drinking. I pretend I enjoy it. This time, I didn’t I did it purely and solely to escape.

After looking back on the past year of trying and failing I know the only option is to fully commit to this 100 days, when I’ll get a clearer picture of what life could be lift if I kick this horrible habit.

The last week’s drinking was so isolating and lonely. I went on holiday with 1 other friend, avoided him wherever possible to go to the bar, raid the mini bar and get it replaced when I knew he wasn’t going to be in the room. When we were by the pool, I secretly topped up diet coke with red wine. I know one night at dinner I was slurring badly when he was stone cold sober and one night he had to carry me to bed.

I just cannot drink. I remember when I met Carrie on Sober and Belle from Team 100 and we talked about not knowing when the switch had flipped from me being a normal drinker to a destructive one, and Carrie wisely said “Once the switch has flipped, it doesn’t flip back.” Now I know this. I feel it with every bone in my body. Hell, I feel it in my liver, which aches.

I am more determined than every to stop. Just for today, then for tomorrow, until I get to 100. I no longer care this 100 days encompasses the work Christmas party, Christmas with my family of big drinkers, New Years Eve. I just want to stop now.

I was up until 5am last night reading this and I have never related more to reflections on alcoholism. I clearly am one. I know this now. I’m embracing it as the truth. Even though it feels completely at odds with who I thought I was, and every area of my life, it’s become the truth. I have a huge drinking problem.

I’m feeling angry and determined. Being in the grips of alcohol wasn’t how my life was supposed to turn out, but it somehow has, and I’m so determined to conquer it this time. I’m not letting fucking wolfie do the dance of seduction which lures me into the false sense of security that it’s fine.

Yesterday was quite a remarkable day in this whole trying to stay sober thing.

For the first time, out loud, I met people who are having the same problem. I finally met the wonderful Belle and other lovely Team 100ers to have tea and cinnamon buns, and talk.
It was so important to me for so many reasons.
The first, was the realisation that I’m really not alone in having been crept up on by wolfie. That wolfie catches all sorts of together-looking, kind, bright, wonderful women. That these women have all struggled in their own way to beat the problem, have stumbled, fallen and got back up again. That several of them have stuck to the challenge, been through its ups and downs and got far beyond 100 days.
The experience was really valuable to me, but a strange thing happened while I was there, in that warm, beautiful smelling café with all these wonderful women. In the back of my mind, I had a voice almost the whole time I was there, an urge telling me that after this meeting, I would go to the pub and drink a cold pint, or warming glass of red. That I needed that final warm embrace of alcohol before I gave up for good. That this time, it would be my last.

I had the inevitable sense of feeling you’ve failed before the drinking incident has happened. There’s something about drinking where the second it enters my head to have a drink, I know I’ll do it, and I’ll drink the whole bottle.

I left the café really conflicted. On the one hand, it would be an insult to the women I’d spent the past couple of hours with, but on the other, it would mean I got once last chance to say goodbye. I was tired, emotionally vulnerable, and just really really wanted a drink.

I decided to eat some chocolate, to try and give myself a lift. That helped. Then I remembered all the “last time” drinks I’ve had over the past year. The last bottles.

I promised myself a bath and a cup of Pukka love tea when I got home. I promised myself a take away if I wanted one (I never eat take away, but I had the urge for something comforting and a bit naughty). I knew I had fresh bed sheets waiting for me at home.

And I resisted. I refound the skill that I had lost after going back to drinking. The skill that got me through my first block of sobriety: the ability to cling on to anything that will stop me drinking during my dark 2 hours where the urge is overwhelming. To stop me drinking until I can have a meal, which always crushes the urge.

Yesterday was important in so many ways, and I just want to thank Belle and her amazing team 100 supporters for their company and their words of encouragement, their wisdom on stopping.

Here I am with one more day sober (admittedly, I was still drinking until last week), one day feeling like this whole thing might actually be within my grasp.